soraikai / bottle gourd groundnut kootu

Kootu is prepared by cooking vegetable in a coconut gravy. Most of the watery indian vegetables like pumpkin, snake gourd,bottle gourd etc goes well for kootu. It is a traditional recipe of Tamilnadu and is prepared as a side dish for rice or it can even be mixed with rice. I personally prefer to have this with dosa. Here is the simple recipe for kootu.

Ingredients:

Bottle gourd-1 cup

Onion-1 small

Turmeric powder-1 tsp

Salt- as needed

Groundnuts-1/4 cup (boiled)

To grind:

Coconut-1/2 cup

Pepper corns-8

Jeera-1 tsp

Green chilly-1

Seasoning:

one tsp each of

Mustard

urad 

cumin

Preparation:

• In a vessel add the bottle gourd and groundnut and pou water until it completely covers the vegetable.
• Add turmeric powder and cook on medium flame.
• In the meantime grind the ingredients mentioned in the to grind section and make a smooth paste.
• Add the ground paste to the vegetable and mix well and let it cook until the vegetable is fully done.
• Switch off the flame .
• Heat oiul in a pan and add all the ingredients under the seasoning section mentioned above and once done add the onions and saute well.
• Add this seasoning to the prepared kootu and mix well.
• Serve hot.

Note:I used vadagam for seasoning which is more flavourful.This vadagam is home made and can be stored in bottle for up to one year.It is readily available in super markets too.